Check retainer risk
Use the seven checks before signing, renewing, firing, or increasing the monthly fee.
Run checklistStan Consulting · do it yourself guides
Most clients with an underperforming agency know something is off months before they can name it. The numbers look professional, the calls are cordial, the numbers look fine at a glance, and still revenue is not moving.
These guides exist to help operators name what they are seeing, ask the right questions, and decide what to do before the next contract term starts.
Quick answer
This pillar covers how to evaluate a marketing agency on your own: what the monthly summary should contain, what account access you should have, who is actually running the work day to day, and how to have the performance conversation without destroying the relationship. It is written for business owners who have an agency and are not sure if renewing is the right call. If you need the framework applied to your specific situation, the Conversion Marketing Plan reviews the account directly in 72 hours.
Check next
Why this guide matters: Agency, vendor, retainer, or outsourced marketing spend is not producing a clear return. The business may renew, fire, or switch vendors before the real problem is known. Use the guide to check the pattern before renewing, replacing, or renegotiating the vendor.
Scanning order
The goal is not to catch someone out. The goal is to know whether the account has a strategy problem, a tracking problem, an execution problem, or a relationship problem.
Use the seven checks before signing, renewing, firing, or increasing the monthly fee.
Run checklistUse specific signs instead of vague frustration before starting the performance conversation.
Identify the signsLook past activity metrics and ask whether the summary connects spend, work, learning, and revenue.
Open the summaryIf the agency cannot answer the core questions, write an RFP that reveals judgment instead of polish.
Write the RFPUse renewal advantage to fix scope, tracking, ownership, staffing, price, and termination terms.
Renegotiate contractIf you cannot access ad accounts, data, tags, landing pages, or source-of-truth revenue data, the first problem is ownership and governance, not performance.
The collection
Checklist
Retainer risk checklist
Seven things to check before signing, renewing, firing, or increasing a marketing retainer.
Run checklist →Guide
How to tell if your marketing agency is underperforming
The specific signs of underperformance, what to ask, what to measure, and the eight questions to run before signing another contract.
Open guide →Guide
How to write a marketing agency RFP
Most agency RFPs produce identical pitch decks. The structure of an RFP that surfaces real practitioner judgment, with the specific questions that cannot be faked.
Open guide →Guide
How to assess a monthly marketing summary
Monthly agency numbers are designed to look impressive. The four-step framework for scanning past the styling and finding the real numbers.
Open guide →Guide
How to renegotiate a marketing agency contract
Annual renewals are the buyer's advantage moment. The six items to renegotiate (scope, pricing, termination, ownership, tracking, staffing) and how to do it without breaking the relationship.
Open guide →When a guide is not enough
A guide describes the pattern. Your situation has a specific shape. If an agency reports clicks without reconciling qualified outcomes, works from a changed scope, controls account access, or changes the named operator, document each issue against the signed agreement, decision log, permissions, and renewal terms before choosing the next action.
If you need someone to assess the account and the relationship directly and tell you what to ask, what to build, and whether to renew, the Conversion Marketing Plan delivers a marketing plan in 72 hours. The growth plan includes account access audit, tracking gap analysis, structural findings on the paid advertising work, and a prioritized list of the conversations to have before the next term starts. Starts at $999. Marketing review first. For the prior decision of whether to hire help at all, see the do it yourself marketing versus hiring someone comparison.
Related pillars
The engagement format
$999 starting point. Written delivery. Written findings. Audit first.
Book a callWhy Agencies Sell Activity When They Cannot Sell Judgment covers the underlying rule this depends on.